Saturday, December 20, 2008

Nonstop to the Mainland!

Today's ISC chat centered around the announcement from The Lab That Dare Not Speak Its Name that the United Sailing Sims would be relocating adjacent to - and accessible from - the Nautilus sims on the Mainland. The Guv made an unusally early appearance to ask what people thought of the idea.

Having greater "tourist" traffic through Caledon seemed like an appealing idea, but balanced against that was the concern that a direct connection with the Mainland might make it harder for Caledon to maintain its theme. What if the adjacent property became a huge wall of flashing neon lights and host to an escort service?

I may have seen enough of the Mainland for a lifetime. I visited Nautilus when it first opened, and even made a return visit today to see how it had changed (not for the better, was my summary), and Kathy makes the occasional foray to the Mainland for one purpose or another. Most people object to the unfocused ugliness of the Mainland as the principal objection, but I find the absurd ban lines to be the worst part of it. What is the point of a unified chunk of "land" if one cannot move freely across it, or sail its waters, or travel its skies? Is SL to be a series of teleportations from one area to another? Surely to buy into the idea that this is a "world" requires the ability to travel from Point A to Point B without resorting to teleportation.

Of course, an estate linked to the Mainland would still be under the Guv's control, and the Guv prohibits banlines. Fair enough.

Still, the idea makes me nervous. Perhaps being nervous is not a good enough reason to dislike something. And increasing the amount of foot traffic in Caledon (and related estates) is a good thing.